Dementia brain scan

Developing drugs that effectively slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease has been notoriously difficult. Scientists and drug developers believe that a large part of the problem is that they are testing these drugs too late in the progression of the disease, when significant damage to the brain makes intervention much more difficult. “Drugs like Lilly’s gamma secretase inhibitor failed because they were tested in the wrong group of patients,” says Sangram Sisodia, director of the Center for Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Chicago. People in the mid or late stages of the disease “are too far gone, there is nothing you can do.” New brain imaging research may help solve that problem. Two studies presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego this week identified changes in the brains of people who would go on to develop the disease. Researchers ultimately hope to use these changes to select patients for clinical tests … [Read more...] about How Brain Imaging Could Help Predict Alzheimer’s

Beginning next month, doctors can use a brain scan to better diagnose Alzheimer’s. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a fluorescent dye that binds to amyloid plaques, a physical hallmark of the disease, as a diagnostic tool. Currently, doctors cannot be certain whether or not a patient’s brain is riddled with amyloid plaques until after the patient’s death. But now, clinicians can use a weakly radioactive dye to search for the presence of plaques in a living patient. The dye binds to the starchy amyloid that builds up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and can be visualized in a PET scan. The FDA approved the scan as a method for estimating plaque content in the brains of people exhibiting cognitive decline. The presence or absence of plaques in a patient with forgetfulness, confusion, or other signs of neurological trouble could help doctors with their diagnoses. Although scientists do not know whether or not the plaques … [Read more...] about Brain Scan for Alzheimer’s

Human cognitive abilities decline with age. And neuroscientists have long known that this decline correlates with anatomical changes in the brain as well. So it’s no surprise to learn that it is possible to spot the signs of aging in MRI images of the brain and even to determine a “brain age.” The difference between brain age and chronological age can reveal the onset of conditions such as dementia.But the analysis is lengthy because the MRI data has to be heavily processed before it is suitable for automated aging. This pre-processing includes the removal from the image of non-brain tissue such as the skull, the classification of white matter, gray matter, and other tissue, and the removal of image artefacts along with various data-smoothing techniques. All this data crunching can take more than 24 hours, and that is a serious obstacle for doctors hoping to take into account a patient’s brain age when making a clinical diagnosis. Today, all that changes … [Read more...] about Deep-Learning Machine Uses MRI Scans to Determine Your Brain Age

Around a million Americans are today living with Parkinson’s disease and some five million with Alzheimer’s. While teams of experts continue to search for cures for the debilitating brain conditions, others have been looking at ways to detect the diseases sooner. Early detection and diagnosis is important as it can improve access to the appropriate medical services and support systems, as well as enable those affected to make plans regarding care, legal, and financial matters.However, spotting changes in the brain early is a huge challenge as they can begin to occur a full 10 years before the first symptoms become apparent. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have been working in this area for some time and may have found an answer thanks to existing technology in the form of a digital pen.Many of the existing tests for dementia are somewhat rudimentary, and involve, for example, getting patients to draw … [Read more...] about How a digital pen can help doctors diagnose brain disease earlier

You can do your bit to help with dementia research right now. Just download and play Sea Hero Quest on your smartphone.Researchers at University College London are collecting data on how brains navigate, according to Sky News. Because early signs of dementia include difficulties with navigating familiar places and spatial awareness, a reference database built from the behaviors of “normal” people without dementia can help in screening.Dementia is not a specific disease. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, “Dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia.”Sea Hero Quest is a game in which you help an explorer navigate through multiple levels, gathering messages and information that represent memories of the explorer’s aging father. If you’re not a game player, be assured the game is pretty easy and you don’t … [Read more...] about Playing smartphone game can have impact on dementia research

According to a recently published study, high-voltage taser shocks can impair a person’s memory and cognition abilities for up to an hour after they’re administered. In a randomized control trial, volunteer participants were subjected to Taser shocks and tested for cognitive impairment. Some showed short-term declines in cognitive functioning comparable to dementia, raising serious questions about the ability of police suspects to understand their rights at the point of arrest. Check out the full study here.Next up, a panel of scientists released a report this week recommending that the US Food and Drug Administration approve testing for a controversial in-vitro fertilization procedure that creates a human embryo with genetic material gathered from two mothers and one father. In other words, they’re saying we should allow doctors to make babies with three genetic parents. If this procedure ever wins approval from the FDA, it could lead to some really interesting … [Read more...] about Just for the tech of it: 3-parent babies, DARPA brain implants, Taser hangovers

Neuroscientists and researchers from the world of high-energy physics have developed the world’s first wearable PET scanner — making it possible to analyze the inner functions of the brain while subjects are on the go. It is hoped that the technology will allow for in-depth investigations to be carried out into both people with exceptional talents and also those with degenerative brain disorders like Parkinson’s disease and dementia.“The brain is absolutely amazing,” Dr. Stan Majewski, co-investigator on the project and a faculty member in the Department of Radiology and Medical Imaging at the University of Virginia, told Digital Trends. “There’s so much about it that we don’t understand. For example, it’s fascinating to hear about savants: people with incredible capabilities in particular areas, like memory or mathematics. There are also cases where people have been involved in accidents and have emerged with particular … [Read more...] about Mobile brain-scanning helmet will allow subjects to be studied while on the go

Informatics Sugar Really Does Rot your BrainBrain pictures show the hippocampus in yellow and the amygdala in blue.People whose blood sugar is in the high end of the normal range may be at greater risk of brain shrinkage that occurs with aging and diseases such as dementia, according to an academic from The Australian National University. Dr. Nicolas Cherbuin, from the Centre on Ageing, Health, and Wellbeing in the ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, studied 249 people, aged 60 to 64, who had blood sugar in the normal range. The participants had brain scans at the start of the study and again, on average, four years later.“Numerous studies have shown a link between type 2 diabetes and brain shrinkage and dementia, but we haven’t known much about whether people without diabetes with blood sugar on the high end of normal experience these same effects,” said Cherbuin.“Blood glucose levels are measured in millimoles per liter (mmol/l). A normal blood … [Read more...] about Sugar Really Does Rot your Brain

Life Sciences In this photo taken July 12, 2017, Cynthia Guzman walks through a garden outside her home in Napa, Calif. Guzman underwent a special kind of PET scan that can detect a hallmark of Alzheimer’s and learned she didn’t have that disease as doctors originally thought, but a different form of dementia. New research suggests those scans may lead to changes in care for people with memory problems that are hard to diagnose. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) Does it really take an expensive brain scan to diagnose Alzheimer’s? Not everybody needs one but new research suggests that for a surprising number of patients whose memory problems are hard to pin down, PET scans may lead to changes in treatment.The findings, reported Wednesday, mark a first peek at a huge study under way to help determine if Medicare should start paying for specialized PET scans that find a hallmark of Alzheimer’s — a sticky plaque called amyloid.Alzheimer’s is the most common … [Read more...] about Brain Scans May Change Care For Some People With Memory Loss

Reading a brain with a machine to get the information in it has been the stuff of sci-fi for years. Now, scientists at UC Berkeley's Gallant Lab have demonstrated that it's possible.The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reconstruct movies subjects watched by reading their brain activity.The process involved measuring brain activity in the part of the brain governing vision when the subject watched a selected set of movies. They developed computational models and correlating those models to signals measured in the subject's brain when watching a different set of movies.The process was long and involved, and it required plenty of work."To achieve reconstructions, we currently need a relatively large amount of computational resources and several hours of recordings for each subject," Shinji Nishimoto, the first author of the Gallant Lab paper and a post-doctoral candidate at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley, told TechNewsWorld.Gallant Lab … [Read more...] about SCIENCE Brain Scans Paint Picture of What the Mind’s Eye Sees